A mainstream music magazine has put a naked chick on the cover. This stunningly unremarkable event in the pornulational continuum induced not the slightest blip on my obstreperometer. Magazines put naked chicks on their covers roughly 82,697 times a day; it’s all part of the general background noise created in pop culture by the constant crushing of women’s dignity in the giant trash compactor of oppression.
But wait! The naked chick on the mainstream music magazine cover is Beth Ditto, who is fat! Suddenly everyone’s talking about this cover (and by ‘everyone’ I mean here and at Big Fat Blog). It’s so transgressive to pornulate a fat chick instead of a skinny one! It’s so empowering for fat women to be able to look up to a pornulated role model! It’s an act of feminist rebellion; way to go, Beth, for daring to show Dude Nation that fat women exist!
Oy gevalt.
1. Porn isn’t transgressive; it’s de rigueur. No one in Western culture has drawn a porn-free breath in decades. This means it’s the norm.
2. Pictures of naked women empower nobody but the men who pimp’em out and the voyeurs who consume’em. A woman may elect to reap the benefits of her capitulation to her oppressor, and she can even call it “empowerment” when she does it, but that doesn’t mean she’s not full of shit, and it certainly doesn’t mean that it’s doing any other women the least bit of good.
3. Dude Nation is already well aware that fat women exist. And I guaran-fucking-tee that they’ll continue to hate fat women just as much as they hate skinny ones, no matter which pop star shows up weighing how much on what magazine cover.
Girls, the dominant pornsick culture is crapping on you. Get hip to this: the ability to titillate men is not a high moral purpose. Being sexually manipulative is not a high moral purpose. Posing naked on the cover of NME isn’t empowering, its emposeuring.
[Thanks, Frumious B]
“The ability to titillate men is not a high moral purpose” is my new motto.
Thank you, Twisty, for making me feel sane again. Your site is the one I visit when I start to believe the men who call me a crazy man-hating feminazi because I have the audacity to suggest that women do not exist to be leered at by men.
Mmmm, can’t agree. One of the ways I got through some of my own fat prejudice was to look at magazines like On Our Backs and get used to what other women’s naked bodies really looked like. One of the paradoxes of porn culture is that on the one hand, women are objectified, and on the other hand, the actual realities of women’s bodies are hidden away. I think one of the ways to stop thinking of women as either sex-bot things or as disembodied honorary men is to confront the truth that all human beings are embodied and that there are therefore *different* human realities.
I also wonder what you, Twisty, and/or your readers think of this post I wrote yesterday on the subject (not of fat, but of whether or not posing nude is “empowering.”
Indeed. Every woman’s right to be sexually objectified by pervy men isn’t a right that feminism needs to fight for.
Fat guys aren’t expected to get their kit off in aid of fat acceptance so why does everybody think it’s such a good idea for fat girls? Oh I forgot, we’re the sex class.
It’s one thing, Dr B, to wish to create some sort of awareness that different body types exist, but the pre-existing condition is always going to be that, because our social order is a patriarchy, an image of a naked woman can never be anything but the graphic representation of oppression. It can never be politically neutral. So I think all these efforts to ‘normalize’ images of ‘real’ women, while well-intentioned, are nevertheless wasted. All that can be expected is for remunerated objectification to become more inclusive.
This would not be true in a post-patriarchal society, wherein, I maintain, ‘beauty’ and ‘attractiveness’ would all become quaint irrelevancies.
What bothers me is that I don’t think any self-respecting musician should give the time of day to the NME, let alone pose for its cover.
I agree. We can all uncork the champagne for fat liberation when a fat woman is allowed on a magazine cover looking perfectly average with her clothes on. I’m sure the editor would have cringed at the idea of putting her there with sweats on. But naked, of course.
And yes, this is nothing new. I mean hasn’t Big Butts magazine has been around for years? I remember being in a bookstore years ago while some guy in the magazine section was reading it openly. I think it was called Big Butts. Something to that effect. Since I’m not a porn connoisseur, I’m afraid I can’t be sure.
“The ability to titillate men is not a high moral purpose.”
This reminds me of one of my “lightbulb moments” (sorry for the Oprah-ism, but still) on this blog. Some sharp blamers/commenters wrote “A hard-on is not a compliment.” and “What has the male gaze done for you lately?” during a discussion months ago. I don’t know why, but it really opened the door to radical feminism for me.
agree, agree, agree
shouldn’t ‘empowerment’ be more a show of wits than a show of twots
“A woman may elect to reap the benefits of her capitulation to her oppressor, and she can even call it “empowerment†when she does it, but that doesn’t mean she’s not full of shit, and it certainly doesn’t mean that it’s doing any other women the least bit of good.”
If a woman figures out how to use her oppression to her best advantage, I can’t blame her. I blame the patriarchy, of course.
You can accept your oppression or you can resist it. Resistance is tough. It doesn’t win you popularity or wealth, and there is little evidence of any progress. Understandably, not everyone chooses to resist. Until the revolution comes, some women just try to get by the best they can. What’s the shame in that? (That’s not a rhetorical question.)
Proof that fat women are already objectified, pornified, and exploited by the sex industry:
http://jackson.craigslist.org/adg/317754080.html
A “BBW Strippers Bash.”
Ugh.
I’m going to take a selfish tack here and ask, what about the female gaze?
I enjoy looking at pictures of naked people, whether in sexually-themed poses or not. Beth Ditto is hot, and if she’s offering a pose for me to gaze upon, I think it’s my lucky day.
Who cares whether I, or some dude, or anyone, JO’s to fleshy fantasies inspired by her photo?
Twisty, surely you know Beth Ditto is an out-and-proud lesbian. She has said so many times. Don’t you think maybe she had some of her female fans in mind when she took off her clothes for that cover? I’m not saying you don’t have a point about Dude Nation, but I don’t think she much gives a crap about them, frankly. If anything she probably thought of it as a giant poke in their collective cornea.
Thanks, Twisty. I got so pissed when I read the hesitant and apologetic Feministing post on this, and hoped that you would have something more rigorously analytical to say.
The trouble is, under the sex class is an underclass of unfuckables. In my pre-enlightenment days, and as a member of said underclass, invisibility was so painful to me that I longed for hatred and harassment, just so I could be believed to exist. I suspect that a lot of women feel the way I did, and it never occured to me, and never occurs to them, that what we should really be aspiring for is full humanity; we just wanted to move one step up the ladder.
And if you sell images showing that there are ways to get up that one rung on the ladder, you can make unfuckables buy stuff to try to “rise” to join the sex class.
We all know who to blame.
For fat girls who are yelled at by dudes from their cars for daring to wear a sleeveless shirt, who have calssmates that laugh and point at their bare legs, who have parents that tell them how ashamed they are to be seen with them, Beth Ditto being naked on the cover of any magazine is as audacious as taking a walk in Afghanistan without your burka. Courage is not a quality required of garden variety fembots in any similar quantities.
…sorry, I meant classmates…
Germaine Greer gets her oar in on the subject, which seems to be “I posed naked for a magazine and so it’s ok if Beth Ditto does as well”:
http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2091764,00.html
(Twisty of course is better than Greer. If naught else, Twisty has never demeaned herself by appearing on Celebrity Big Brother.)
Tricia:
Well said!
Dolia, while I can see that Ditto being naked on a magazine is courageous, I think that Tricia’s point stands — being all pornified just conveniently moves her into a different category in the patriarchy. Being classified as a hot-fat-chick-sexbot doesn’t really seem any better than being classified as an unfuckable fat chick.
Actually Dan Savage is now attacking Beth Ditto, not for being nude, but for, gosh, saying something about gay male designers and the female form.
http://bitchkittie.blogspot.com/2007/06/time-for-beth-dittodan-savage-feud-dan.html
In “Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America,†Laura Kipnis suggests that fat is “always sort of pornographic†(95). She writes about an episode of The Jerry Springer Show that featured a panel of 300-525lb women who pose nude or mostly nude for gag greeting cards.
- “The fat women took the position that they liked posing for the cards. For them, it’s a source of self-esteem, income, sexual possibilities, and even a form of revenge…Springer’s audience, on the other hand, had nothing but contempt for these fat women greeting card models, with Springer taking the paternalistic position that the women were exposing themselves to ridicules and laughter and somehow weren’t aware of it. For Springer it was inevitable that a fat body could invite only one response: mockery†(109).
- “Springer, befuddled by these defiantly fat women, dedicates himself to the project of protecting fat women from ridicule (including his own) by forcing fat back into the closet. Women in the audience were dedicated to the project of expressing their rage at other women who dared to thumb their noses at female size norms†(111)
- “Fat is what our culture, for all of the reasons suggested, doesn’t want to look at. Pornography, in response, puts it on view†(121).
Kipnis seems to consider fetish pornography as a champion of the oppressed because it brazenly defies societal norms. As Twisty says, “Porn isn’t transgressive.†But if posing naked is the only way for a fat woman to make the best of her oppression, IBTP.
Twisty, surely you know Beth Ditto is an out-and-proud lesbian. She has said so many times. Don’t you think maybe she had some of her female fans in mind when she took off her clothes for that cover? I’m not saying you don’t have a point about Dude Nation, but I don’t think she much gives a crap about them, frankly. If anything she probably thought of it as a giant poke in their collective cornea. –thekiti
It doesn’t matter what posing nekkid means to Beth Ditto, whether she’s queer or fat or whatever. It’s what posing nekkid means to all women, collectively.
Although I can promise you, what Ditto had in mind as her audience when she took this gig was not “queer girls only!” but “as many people as possible”. She’s in show biz, after all.
As I pointed out, millions of women are naked on magazines every day, and I realize this state of affairs is strictly a function of economic forces. Which is precisely why I’m not buying that Beth Ditto has made some kind of big feminist statement in saying “look how hot I am, everyone!”
You know, the question of visibility which Dr. B brings up is one with which I personally grapple. One of the missions of my blog — and yes, I do feel it is ridiculous that my blog has missions, but, well, it does — is to increase perception of amputees, especially female amputees, as normal people. Toward that end, and also to demonstrate to other amputees how various nifty tricks and gadgets that make my life easier work, and also sometimes for a laugh, I show pictures of myself doing ordinary, human things.
Here, I show myself gardening:
Digging Perennials
Here I am enjoying a local historical site like any typical tourist:
Check out this lawn ornament!
Here, I show myself riding my tricycle:
Bicycle, Schmicycle! I Got Me a Tricycle.
Here, I show myself at work on some piece of art in my studio on a quiet Sunday:
So what do you think, new business card image?
It is clear from the photos in these posts that as a chubby, middle-aged woman with one natural and one artificial leg, which latter has not been covered cosmetically or designed to accommodate high heels, I belong firmly to the underclass of unfuckables to which Tricia refers; it should be equally apparent, yet will be entirely irrelevant to a porn hunter, that I don’t really give a crap.
Nevertheless, I do worry about pornification, partly because I’m female and partly because I’m an amputee, and this combination alone leaves me open to pornification on a ridiculous scale, because what could possibly be more sexy than a woman who might not be able to run away, right?
Still, I recently published photographs of myself getting in and out of the bathtub as part of a piece on how to bathe without special equipment and also without killing yourself if you only have one leg. I was not naked in these photos, but the parts of my body, my hairy, fat, leg-and-a-half and left foot, had to be because water was involved and I don’t own a wetsuit.
Search Engine Grab Bag: Singing in the Bathtub Edition
I argued with myself about whether even to take these photos. I know what they look like to the porn-intent. However, as a visual artist who doesn’t completely trust her ability to explain with words, and as a realistic woman of the world, I ultimately resigned myself to the knowledge that every single photograph of a human is pornography for someone, embraced my original thought that these might do somebody some good, and went ahead.
I do think that this is one way we, the strange and the unfuckable and yet still female in this world, can work to de-exoticize and destigmatize ourselves, by revealing ourselves living lives so ordinary and complete that they deflate every stereotype by simply existing where everyone can see them. But I don’t believe that revealing ourselves as objects, instead of as normal people going about our normal lives, really reveals anything at all.
What continues to sadden me is how way too many women, especially young women (myself included, once upon a time), fall so easily, what with it being the dominant paradigm and all, into the habit of assessing their own worth at least in part on the basis of their own perceived fuckability. One might think that showing the unfuckable fucking and being enthusiastically fucked would be a logical defense, but it’s not. Because of the ubiquitous and unstoppable pornification engine, all that ends up doing is validating the concept of fuckability as a viable standard of human worth.
This cover reminded me of all the asshats who tell me that it’s empowerful for female martial artists to be photoed naked in stupid come-hither poses. ‘Cause, you know, it proves that they’re still sexay (i.e. know their place in the patriarchy) and will put up with shit from men they could beat the snot out of. Ditto may be out and proud, but the context of the photo seemed to me “Don’t be scared of me boys! I’ll still follow your rules!” Now, I’m not blaming Ditto for this. I’m sure several photos were taken and the guys in charge selected this one for being the least threatening to the status quo. If may be different from most covers, but it’s not a step forward for fat people, lesbians, or women in general. A woman with no sexual interest in men being served up for the male gaze is the antithesis of empowerment.
The male gaze is always already leering.
Whether you are queer, hetero, fat, thin, or anthing else, if you take your clothes off for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER, the Male Gaze will make of you an object. You are participating in the pornification of your own body. There is no reclaiming porn or public nudity for this reason.
Bog, YES, it would be lovely if we could all frolic nude at will but for now, “it’s the patriarchy, stupid!”
Random Lurker: Cause, you know, it proves that they’re still sexay (i.e. know their place
I think you have a bingo!
Random Lurker, I’ve heard the exact same thing. Because, you know, the real reason I go to the dojang is to make sure I’m super-hawt for all the boys.*
As someone who’s been a stick-thin teenage model, a curvy and then fat 20-something woman, and now a lean martial artist and runner, it’s a lose-lose situation no matter what. You’re always being rated on the fuckability scale, and you can never, ever beat that game.
*I am equally pissed off by a godbag fellow student who suggested that I sew the collar of my dobok closed because my sport bra was showing. In her mind, it’s okay for all the guys to have their chest hair showing, but heaven forbid someone should spot a bit of white lycra under my uniform.
Damn, I wish you had said this earlier so I could have quoted it at the asshole who called me a misogynist for saying Maxim is full of patriarchal bullshit that contributes to a rape culture. (This was in reference to an article about the “hottest female superhero”, or something, but the asshole in question told me that asserting that we live in a rape culture and that Maxim contributes to it is tantamount to saying women who “consensually” appear topless in magazines are at fault when men rape.)
I see it more as a baby steps kind of thing. Yes there are plenty of fat-fetishists but they and their smut are usually cast into the porn ghetto. For me, fat acceptance was a gateway to feminism, and I suspect it can be the same for other people as well. First I thought, “Hey, fat women can be sexy too!” and this led to wondering why the main point of it was to prove ourselves as sexually pleasing because it’s not so much like that for the men in the movement. Baby steps.
No it’s not empowering, in and of itself. But I mind it less than other things. Stupid sexualized nakedness.
The sad bit is that even though Beth Ditto probably had great intentions a large proportion of the men looking at that image are saying I’d hit that or I’d not hit that
For the couple of commenters who are saying that Beth Ditto is a dyke and has a lesbian audience in mind when she lets it all hang and therefore it’s a tad different, you may have a point, but keep this salient detail in mind:
Fat queer dudes never pose naked in mainstream publications and talk about how empowering it is.
I heard Beth Ditto (whom I had admired for her outspoken “feminism”) was on the cover of NME, which I foolishly sought out, thinking it would be awesome. But when I saw it, my first impression was, “How humiliating! She doesn’t even know the joke’s on her.” since the readership is overwhelmingly dude and they would just look at her and be revolted. However, I didn’t recognize the routine dehumanization of Yet Another Naked Chick until your post. How sad that all the white noise of Rape Incitement, Inc. (”porn”) desensitized me in failing to see something so obvious.
Oh, one point about her possible appeal to lesbians: women aren’t as overwhelmingly visual as men–not even close. I believe the reason women even bother whooping it up at seeing male strippers, for example, is parroting what men do (w/ re: women) and since the male supremacist perspective is assumed to be the universal human perspective, they believe this is how a sexual “person” should behave, rather than realizing that it is the view of a callous bigot and all they do is reinforce the dehumanization and demonization of women and girls.
Oh may I recommend some post discussion in the future about Hillary Clinton? She’s like Maureen Dowd on steroids.
“Whether you are queer, hetero, fat, thin, or anthing else, if you take your clothes off for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER, the Male Gaze will make of you an object. You are participating in the pornification of your own body. There is no reclaiming porn or public nudity for this reason.”
Exactly. If you can imagine it, there is some sort of porn. And probably more than a few forms of porn that you or I couldn’t imagine, either. Men will always find some way to objectify some women. I mean, sure, stuff like Playboy is limited to very narrow beauty standards. But it’s no less sexist when there’s some porn site that features fat women or women dressed up like animals or so-called punk porn, etc. It’s all the same objectification.
cough The phrase is not, as the patriarchy would have you believe, “man-hating feminazi” but rather “misogyny-hating feminazi”. The distinction is kept close to my castration-joke loving heart. Thank you
Also, the lovely and always admirable Shakes asked why is it wrong to capitulate to the incessant patriarchal demand to act like a sleazy ho, if acting like a sleazy ho has quantifiable benefits accruing to said sleazy ho.
I have no answer that isn’t rude, crude, and socially unexceptable. IBTP
Life under the veil, if anybody hasn’t read it.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-women6jun06,1,6178058,full.story?ctrack=3&cset=true
Perhaps it’s not so much about the nudity as the overwhelming message that being female is immoral. I think of the Ancient Greeks and Romans who *lionized* the nude male form, rather than celebrate as a scapegoat as we do w/ female nudes. Obviously, if males think being female is offensive than seeing a nude only exacerbates the offense, especially to heterosexual males who are horribly hysterical about being attracted to evil and must compensate such anxiety w/ an oppressive mentality.
Because of the ubiquitous and unstoppable pornification engine, all that ends up doing is validating the concept of fuckability as a viable standard of human worth.
I would also argue that a bunch of living breathing humans spending their all too-brief meatspace lives trying to pin down, like a dead dry butterfly, with (most likely just my perception) self-congratulatory exactitude when and where and exactly how far someone witlessly went off the rails and availed themselves to the leering eyes, mouths,arms,dicks of the rape culture is also a form of validating, or at least defining, that standard.
I love this board and I greatly admire Twisty and a lot of the posters here, but in all honesty I find it hard to deal with all the abstract perfectionism. And, not that anyone cares, that’s why I don’t post much. I don’t feel like I can ‘make the grade’ and life’s hard enough most days, I don’t enjoy being shot down for something I said because it wasn’t well thought-out or contradicted something was supposed to think/feel/always remember and never forget. And I realize that it’s my choice to deal or not deal, to post or not post,, to read or not read, to struggle or not struggle, I’m not blaming any blamers here.
Re Ditto, call me selfish short-sighted, expressionist, a randomist, but I guess I just do not agree that an action, of any kind, ill-advised or brave or pefectly academic and theoretically staunch, or even outright self-serving and selfish, has just ONE reaction, or one likely reaction, one inevitable reaction, one reaction more meaningful than any other. I have no really certain idea what Ditto felt or thought about posing, and I don’t know what she thinks or feels about everything else for certain. I find her full of contradictions, and sometimes just a plain trainwreck. Nonetheless, I find myself admiring her. She inspires me and I wish someone like her was around when I was a fat, self-hating closeted teenager. It would have helped me a great deal. It wouldn’t have mattered that I was ignorant of feminist theory and the dominant rape/fuckability culture. What would have mattered is seeing someone that validated my corporeal self holding their head up and walking on their hind legs like a human being. Am I wrong to think that? I don’t really care because I know it would have helped. Would it have hurt me as much as it helped? I don’t know.
I’m a fat person, a lesbian and I don’t spend much time trying to conform to the dominant culture. What that means is I am invisible to most of that culture. I know when I’m being seen and when I’m not and most of the time I’m not. This invisibility, or the knowledge of it at least, is as much of an advantage to me as a disadvantage because it tells me a lot about how society really is and I’ve learned well how to use that, even exploit being able to turn it on and off.
That said, do I want visibility? Do I think visibility is important? Of course, at times, of course. I revel being in those spaces, with that company.
And sometimes I revel in assaulting those that don’t see me, shoving myself and my experience “down their throat” to borrow the common term.
And it’s in both those instances where I find value and (sorry) power in Ditto’s action. I think there are many possible reactions to what she did, and I think that at least some of them can have a positive, authentic, and yes, empowering effect.
Sorry about the unclosed tags on my post above. That first paragraph was a quote from Sara’s excellent post and the rest was me.
mAndrea:
The link requires registration.
Also, just a couple points of clarification:
1. I didn’t ask what was wrong with it, but whether there’s any shame in it.
2. I was recently informed that there is another, more widely-known Shakes in this blogosphere. I am not she. I’ll go ahead take “lovely and always admirable” as a compliment, but I should point out that I am not Shakes of Shakespeare’s Sister or Shakesville.
Torture porn’ helps Lionsgate roar
Thanks to horror hits ‘Saw’ and ‘Hostel’.
Just saw this headline at CNN. I am so sick of the world. I don’t know why any woman would choose to take her clothes off and be photographed so that some hairy toothless creep can jack off while he fantasizes about fucking her up the ass. How the hell is that empowered? I guess I’m just a prude. They are just casting their pearls before swine.
As for Beth Ditto, when I saw the pics (and the dreadful come hither pose) all I could think was, “she just wants to be hawt”. Desperate. Her image and pose in no way confronts or undermines. Way to go Beth, now creepy dudes can jack off to your pic, too.
I think the HTML is kooky. I didn’t mean to bold it all.
If there were no patriarchy then we could all pose as nude as we wanted and the feeling it would inspire would be exactly like the feelings we have for seeing someone’s face: a sum of details that make each of us unique with no hotness or unhotness about it.
Whenever I see someone, like Neko Case, who made an innocent and poorly-thought-out decision to pose nude I blame the Patriarchy, not Neko. When people say “She wanted to pose naked, she’s sex-positive, she did it for her lesbian fans,” whatever, I still blame the patriarchy. Anything that defines us as sexual being first and foremost in a patriarchal society will always be a political act. I don’t blame the person who posed, I blame the big P.
That said, I think that images of women that dudes don’t find instantly corresponding to the tightly-structred codes for arousing can help men who may be blindly groping for release from the prison of horndog dude identity start to see women as human beings first. Not that it’s a positive thing, just that there’s a tiny chance that any break from the status quo might let a little of the light of reason into the open mind.
If any woman ever asked me if I thought she should pose naked I would say it seemed like a bad idea to me, because I hate men. Today I was really hating men. I had to hang with a real sexist bastard last night and it was hard on my sensitive soul. I see them in the airport and I see how much they love themselves and I just hate them.
That said, I think that images of women that dudes don’t find instantly corresponding to the tightly-structred codes for arousing can help men who may be blindly groping for release from the prison of horndog dude identity start to see women as human beings first.
I don’t buy this for one minute. You are either just giving them an opportunity to ridicule or expanding the breadth their possible wanking material. I don’t think there’s anyway that images (especially nude photos) can, “let a little of the light of reason into the open mind.”
And yes, IBTP.
Felt Tip Pen: there’s a “porn ghetto”? If so, point me toward the suburbs. Because I’m pretty sure we’re all living in that ghetto, and I don’t see any exit signs.
On the one hand, yes, it’s still porn-malegaze-ified like everything else on the planet, and that sucks. It’s a big hand. And most seasoned blamers understand that hand.
On the other, smaller hand, we have women who have not yet quite made it to being blamers and fat/size accepters but have an inkling that something’s wrong and they’re still fairly stuck in the modes of patriarchy. To them, Ditto’s NME cover represents a radical idea: a fat woman who’s not ashamed of her naked body, who’s happy how she is and willing to smack down anyone who tells her “But you have such a pretty face, if only you lost some weight — “. I can almost guarantee you that if I’d seen someone like Ditto ‘out loud and proud’ when I was 15-16, it may well have spared me 10 painful, eating-disordered years of knowing that were no fat women who had lives and happiness because I never saw any. Unless you have ever been fat you cannot understand the utter fucking cultural invisibility you have.
I’m sad and bothered that this first step often comes through porn-ified images. I think a lot of women (mostly fat), however, do stop to think about why it takes a picture like that NME cover to get attention and investigate further and find there’s a whole world of blaming waiting for them, from where they can do what they can to make it so fat girls don’t have to rely on porn-o-riffic, exploitative images for their start on the road to feeling human. It’s what I and quite a few other women I know did. Why should we have had to feel that we had to join in on the sexy exploitin’ wagon to be at least somewhat accepted? I wish I’d been able to skip that step but that’s not how it happened: I’m not saying that we should encourage more naked women on display, just use what we can from the experience.
IBTP times infinity plus one.
I can almost guarantee you that if I’d seen someone like Ditto ‘out loud and proud’ when I was 15-16, it may well have spared me 10 painful, eating-disordered years of knowing that were no fat women who had lives and happiness because I never saw any.
I’m curious what makes you think she has ‘happiness’?
I’m curious what makes you think she has ‘happiness’?
Sara said, “I ultimately resigned myself to the knowledge that every single photograph of a human is pornography for someone.”
It was a long post, but I thought this was an important line. Porn culture and its relationship to porn reminds me of rape culture and its relationship to rape. Rape culture is a culture based upon systems of dominance and submission, and these are gendered. Rape is the obvious and outright expression of the underlying cultural paradigm. Porn is the obvious and outright expressions of the porn culture, where porn culture is a culture based upon gendered objectification and sexual satisfaction. Porn is simply more obviously an objectifying force. People, and especially males–at the very least, sexual actions prompted by visual stimuli are gendered–constantly create sexual fantasies from non-explicitly-pornified images. And, well, all sexual fantasies with total strangers really just boil down to notions of ownership and dominance, and thus the porn culture is related to the rape culture.
I’m curious what makes you think she has ‘happiness’?
And I’m curious what makes you think you have some universal knowledge about the real truth of what many other people have gone through at the hands of the patriarchy, and the one and only path of enlightenment toward being a ’seasoned blamer’?
Not everyone has the exact same experience, yet they may be as battle-scarred, as insightful, as seasoned, and gasp -as enlightened, and feeling every bit as human - as those who believe they are sitting on the mountaintop.
Beware the ‘radical’ who places a premium on ‘acceptable’ identities.
Not everyone used your map. There are many different ‘first steps’ and as many different journeys.
Headache alleviated by your post, Twisty - and nothing to add the commenters haven’t said better.
Please, with tacos on top, excuse a brief off-thread jump:
Random Lurker and Bird, fellow blamer karateka/MA here - if either/both of you are willing to back-channel me, I could use to connect with some feminist martial artists. Big time. Thetheriomorph at aol dot com. Been keeping an eye out for some, & would be grateful.
Pardon the blaming interruption, hope no one minds, thanks, tacos.
I’m more or less with virgotex here. I don’t disagree with the stance against porn, but I think naked calendars of women of all ages, in dignified, non-sexualized poses work on many levels against mindless objectification of women, even if all they do is raise other women’s awareness. The year that Salt Spring Island women produced a calendar to raise funds to save a portion of the island from clearcutting, I gave them to all the women in my life. I was so proud of those women! And they were so beautiful in all their wrinkled, pudgy, droopy, voluptuous glory.
The pictures were tasteful black and whites, taken in the natural splendor of Salt Sping Island. They were quiet and dignified, almost meditative, but to me that calendar was a wail of outrage against the exploitation of the earth as flesh, as woman. I know how desperate they felt. It was a passionate and poignantly ironic statement of worth, for clearcutting on Salt Spring was to them and to me akin to rape.
I think women can use their bodies to protest.
Every February, the crip magazine called New Mobility has a “Sex, Wheels and Relationships” issue that invariably has nude disabled people on the cover. Inside the issue, it talks about sexuality related to disabled people, whether it be medical interventions for sexual dysfunction or how we are portrayed as asexual.
Then every April, in the Letters to the editor, no one writes about anything except the nekkid crips on the cover. Some think it is bold and in-your-face and part of the revolution. Some think it is disgusting and shocking that they had to walk by a newsstand and see “these people” who have no business being naked anywhere but in darkened rooms with only nurses present. And some object based on the overall objectification/porn issue.
I think that there may be a case for certain classes of people such as the disabled and perhaps fat women to have to “rise up” to even the lowest rung of the ladder of oppression. The lowest rung being a more enviable position than the invisible bog of what is considered the shit of humanity that lies below. Only then can they join those who at least are visible in the revolution, and can the mainstream revolutionaries also benefit from them as well.
Is there a better way to do it? As a disabled woman, I am unfuckable. I get it both ways. I get (or got when I was younger and supposedly “hotter”) “I’d do her if she wasn’t blind.” “Too bad she’s a gimp, cuz she’s got hot tits.” Or whatever. We are not even considered worthy of objectifying for sex. Maybe there is a better way for the “unfuckable” to at least gain visibility and be able to even strive to join the rest of the sex class (who also many times consider us invisible.) But I see this as a first little baby step in getting us all together and unified. It is very, very sad state of affairs as it is all capitulating to the patriarchy that umbrellas all of these little subgroups and hierarchies of fat women or trans or disabled or whatever. But you have to start somewhere.
women aren’t as overwhelmingly visual as men–not even close.
Oh, really? As a one-time female pornophile and current devoted sensualist, I’m calling Bullshit on this one. I also like films, comics and graphic novels, and anyone who’s ever had a conversation with me knows I’m a crappy listener.
Do women whoop it up at male strip shows because it’s how they think a person at a ‘sexual exhibition’ venue should behave? Yeah, this is probably true.
Does this mean women have libidos that are dependent instead on emotions, romantic cupid poetry and their partner’s wallets? Hell no.
I’ve never understood why people make bio determinist arguments like this. Women of all orientations who like lots of frequent, casual sex with many different partners have been brainwashed into behaving ‘like men.’ Men of all orientations who enjoy arousing/emotionally intense conversations with their partners as much as fucking them must be weirdos with un-naturally low testosterone levels. It couldn’t possibly be that there are women who like to fuck and men who like to cuddle and that a person’s libido is more idiosyncratic than any genitalia-based generalisations permit?
The thing that got me about this was that normaly Beth does pretty damn well on providing some real empowerment when she gets interviewed. She’s happy to poke holes in Dude Nation’s angry white boy music, and she’s more than happy to tell interviewers the straight dope on what it’s like to be a queer woman in the music industry or to exist while fat. When I saw the article I just wanted to scream “Why?”
She looks great, it’s a beautiful picture, and I can’t help but wince at the thought of the thousands of guys who will utter some version of “I’d hit it! What’s The Gossip?” (Like the poor pole vaulting girl.)
Oh crud, I mean I saw the article about the magazine cover and wanted to scream “Why?”
I’d also like to say that while the media treats fat women like me as if we were invisible, I certianly haven’t noticed anyone acting as if I were. People tend to bring their issues with my body right to me, either by attacking me verbally or physically, or snidely making comments about how “pretty” I’d be if I just lost weight or how my health would improve. I don’t have anyone pretending they can’t see me, or I suppose I should say not any more than they do for any other woman.
I imagine this is partially because I couldn’t care less if I have any fuckability at all. I suppose if I cared whether or not women or men were rating me based on their desire to use my body I might worry about where I appeared on their radar.
Of course, I could not have gotten to this point without both fat acceptance and feminism, both of which are schools of thought which (usually) expouse that the form, shape, size, color, and content of one’s body does not indicate personal worth. That is why I always feel slightly betrayed to see fat acceptance eschew it’s basic ideas of equality despite the shape of the body to embrace oppression based on how acceptable individual bodies are (by their submission to the porn mandate). There comes a sort of ranking system, where fat people align themselves with the “good” fat people, those who are “attractive” “fashionable” or “sexy”, while abandoning the fat people who don’t meet the patriarchal standards of acceptance. I am one of “those” fat people, unattractive, dress like I don’t care, and even Leonard Nimoy’s photographic skills would fail to imbue me with grace and dignity. I want to make sure that fat acceptance continues to be a place where I have worth and am not relegated to “bad” status. Hence my dismay at every instance of cheerleading the pornification of fat bodies as a step forward.
(Please forgive all the stupid quotation marks, I wish I knew of some other way to denote a specious usage of language.)
As an aside, as one of Beth Ditto’s queer fans, I feel she does more for me when she gives a good interview than she ever would by posing nude. I don’t know why I should feel entitled to oggle simply because she and I share a mildly compatible ranking on a Kinsey scale. Yes, I find her attractive - no, I don’t know what that has to do with her worth as a musician.
“I think women can use their bodies to protest.”
But why should we? You don’t see male environmental protestors getting their cocks out to be photographed in a “tasteful” or “dignified” way. They are allowed to keep their real dignity and keep their clothes on.
The reason why a woman’s body speaks louder than her words in patriarchy is because that is what men value us for. They want us to STFU and show them our tits. It’s a shame that so many women feel they have to go along with it and an even greater shame that that in some circles capitulation is regarded as political empowerment, which it will never ever be.
“I’ve never understood why people make bio determinist arguments like this.”
I think it’s becasue they are noticing a phenomenon but haven’t quite analysed what is really going on. It’s more accurate to say that men enjoy watching women being sexually objectified and degraded a lot more than most women do. Some women of course do like to jump on that particular male privilege bandwagon, but it’s a pretty stupid thing to do and a betrayal of the rest of their sex.
spitfire
“”women aren’t as overwhelmingly visual as men–not even close.”
Oh, really? As a one-time female pornophile and current devoted sensualist, I’m calling Bullshit on this one. I also like films, comics and graphic novels, and anyone who’s ever had a conversation with me knows I’m a crappy listener.
Do women whoop it up at male strip shows because it’s how they think a person at a ‘sexual exhibition’ venue should behave? Yeah, this is probably true.
Does this mean women have libidos that are dependent instead on emotions, romantic cupid poetry and their partner’s wallets? Hell no.
I’ve never understood why people make bio determinist arguments like this. Women of all orientations who like lots of frequent, casual sex with many different partners have been brainwashed into behaving ‘like men.’ Men of all orientations who enjoy arousing/emotionally intense conversations with their partners as much as fucking them must be weirdos with un-naturally low testosterone levels. It couldn’t possibly be that there are women who like to fuck and men who like to cuddle and that a person’s libido is more idiosyncratic than any genitalia-based generalisations permit?”
Thankyou spitfire, I hate that bullcrap, I am very visual in the sense of loving animation and grapic novels, though I think caring about looks is very shallow, I dislike when people say that “brainwashed into behaving like a man stuff”. It’s as bad as those lame “jokes” about how every man has a possessive, insensitive, controlling bully inside him, that men who ask for things politely, do them for themselves and enjoy non-penetrative sexual activities are in need of a weekend of hunting and must “assert” (actually be very agressive” themselves and all that crap.
hi,
first time here.
only read one post: nicely put, very nice indeed.
i’m a blamer.
glad to be visiting here.
thanks
d
May I just pop in to say how much I’m loathing the concepts of ‘unfuckable’ and ‘fuckable’? Because, generally speaking, every person alive can engage in some sort of sexual act if they want to. Being “fuckable” sounds to me very much being objectified, and I don’t see why any woman would wish that for herself, regardless of her weight.
I understand the comments from several of the posters here. Overweight and disabled women are shunted aside, belittled and ignored by society, and that’s crap. But do such women want to be pornified objects for the pleasure of the male gaze, or would they rather be respected as persons with acitve minds and bodies that are perfectly lovely in their own right? I would guess the latter.
I am all for seeing bodies of all shapes and sizes on the covers of magazines. But I cannot agree that naked female bodies, whatever their condition, are empowering. Not with society the way it is right now. A woman who takes off her clothes in public is merely conforming to the class the patriarchy has set out for her, i.e., the sex class. Where is the rebellion in a woman doing exactly what the male gaze wants her to do?
No. I’ll cheer when women can appear on magazines comfortably dressed in old jeans and tee shirts, slouching, and staring insolently into the camera if they wish.
shannon, I agree, but uggggghh, that phrase! Not that you used it, but that it exists. I think “I’d hit that” is one of the most blatant verbal expressions of sexual hatred ever devised by the patriarchy!
I should point out that I am not Shakes of Shakespeare’s Sister or Shakesville.
It would be a good idea, then, if you selected another screen name when you post here. Much confusion could otherwise ensue. Thanks!
I’m curious what makes you think she has ‘happiness’?
And I’m curious what makes you think you have some universal knowledge about the real truth of what many other people have gone through at the hands of the patriarchy, and the one and only path of enlightenment toward being a ’seasoned blamer’?
I don’t claim to have ‘universal knowledge’ thus my asking a question to gain knowledge. I do wonder why we make assumptions concerning people we do not personally know because they are famous or rich or on the cover of a magazine. Even someone as open as Beth Ditto has a crafted public persona for our consumption and I am wary making claims about someone based on that manufactured experience. So I was honestly curious why she thought that BD was happy? I recently asked my daughter the same question. She’s begun to mimic certain media fueled behaviors because she truly believes that the actors in those fictions possess the happiness (or power, etc) that she desires. And I became interested in why she believes that these women are truly happy and that theirs is a path to happiness.
Okay, I coulda sworn I closed the italics. What happened to the preview ? Ack.
Can I join Delphyne in jumping on the “What about the [naked] MENZ?” bandwagon? I think it’s quite telling that in the vast majority of cases it’s women posing nude for the sake of empowerment.
I agree that it’s important to divorce nudity from sex - I mean, I had a hard time looking at the external female reproductive system drawings in my physiology book because it reminded me of porn. But I don’t think that this is the way to do it.
I know from personal experience that it’s an awful thing to feel ugly and get that crap kicked in your face every day. And while being considered attractive will get more doors opened for you, I think it’s a pretty hollow victory.
To elaborate on what eldgie said, I’ve come to the conclusion that oftentimes, even when men insist that women be attractive to be valued, they don’t treat them in a nice way. When men think I am attractive, they call me things like “ho”. When men think I am attractive, they startle me by driving extremely close past me when I’m on the sidewalk/screaming at me/honking loudly at me. When men think I am attractive, they assume that it means I want to spend time with them/go places with them/have sex with them. And you know what, if that’s what being attractive means, then I don’t want it.
Regarding what “kiki” wrote we have got to change that damn “torture porn” into what it is: the overt incitement of anti-female violent hate as it sexualizes, glorifies hate crimes (brutal rapes, sadistic torture, and gruesome killings of women and girls). The whole point of that is for males to condition their sexuality to enjoy the sheer terror in women and girls. That’s it! Even the director of one of those females said that women were just “meat” and rhetorically asked what’s so wrong w/ butchering the hell out of said “meat.” He also went on to say that he loves sex and violence, so why not merge them together and up the ante. God, the posters for Hostel II terrorized the hell out of me (the young women swinging back and forth, upside down, in absolute fear). It seems only when we point out that it’s women being singled-out that society says, “You’re human, too, so don’t worry. Your gender is not being targeted but humanity itself.”
“Porn” is seen the same way “sex” is: universally desired by males. When you put “torture” in front of it, it implicitly ties it to sex, like, rape being called “rough sex” or “surprise sex” (Hell, porn sites even advertise “brutal rapes” to entice male consumers so they’re not shy about it). It completely changes the perception. Something has got to be done. I keep writing letters to the papers and nothing is being done about it.
Shakes, I thought that might be the reason you hadn’t linked to the Shakerville site. You wanted to know what was the “shame” of capitualating to the patriarchy, as opposed to it being “wrong”.
Frankly, I don’t see much difference between those two words within the context of that question. “Shame” is the result of wrongdoing. You were asking about the result, but why not get to the cause of the problem instead?
If there is “shame” assumed in some action, then there must be “wrongdoing” assumed as well. So the question becomes “why” is it wrong?. Is it wrong to capitulate to patriarchal ideals? Is it shameful? Those two words are almost exactly interchangable, with only a minute difference in meaning.
Perhaps you meant to ask a different question?
Spitfire,
I said that as a generalization. I never said it was impossible for every individual woman to have high libidos or be as visual, just unlikely (And this is not even taking into account that a significant number of women are survivors of child rape, which distorts sexuality fundamentally, esp. regarding promiscuity/hyper-sexuality as a means of self-destruction). Testosterone does increase libido, but the female libido does exist it, it just happens to be emotionally based than males (again, *generally*).
There was an article about how women and men were both shown images of nudes and men felt an overwhelming sense of reward when looking at the female form while females didn’t when looking at the male form.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/09/nmen09.xml
It would be very useful to teach girls and young women that the female form exists in a whole spectrum of sizes, shapes and colours, and to explain to them just how unrealistic and dehumanising the images are that they are otherwise surrounded by.
But, is it an effective place to do that on the front cover of a mass-market, male-run magazine aimed at an audience consisiting largely of adolescent male wankers ? Probably not.
“men felt an overwhelming sense of reward when looking at the female form”
Well that’s sexism for you. Masculinity is completely tied up with being superior to women so when men see women being degraded or sexually humiliated or presented for their pleasure and delectation they enjoy it - it makes them feel powerful and manly.
delphyne,
Actually, in Vancouver, men and women get naked and protest together. The CBC had a feature on it just last week, in fact.
———
I think the larger issue for me is the futility of claiming the highest ground, the most pristine interpretation of radical feminism. I don’t want to go over old ground (though newish to me), but just to note that I see these arguments about what is acceptable and unacceptable in the RadFem universe, and I’m reminded of the film Crash, in which racism is perpetuated by almost everyone in the film, most poignantly by members of the oppressed group against each other.
I think feminism falls prey to embeded methods of oppression, of dominance and submission—one expression of which is the claiming of the high moral ground—as does the movement for racial equality, but calling someone a nigger has social consequences that similar slurs against women do not have. We’re still embedded in this culture, and no one’s doing it perfectly. I’m never going to be a perfect Blamer. I’m with you on most, maybe all, of the principles, but I’m still going to occasionally do a (figurative) pole dance when I can’t resist. Can I still be included? Am I still welcome? I think we have to agree to disagree and we have to act.
The thing I love about Twisty is that she can take radical stances without alienating people. She has s gift for reconciling disparate points of view, for resolving ambiguity in an inclusive and thoughtful manner. I think a IBTP Foundation is a good idea because misogynists aren’t going to stop calling us fucking skanks if we don’t make it really uncomfortable for them to do so. Whether we agree or not, we have to act.
“Actually, in Vancouver, men and women get naked and protest together. The CBC had a feature on it just last week, in fact.”
Come off it Dawn, we’re talking about women being photographed in the nude to make their protests or get their voices heard. It happens all the time. I can’t believe you’re even comparing the two. And even in your example the men had to have naked women along with them.
Beth Ditto got naked with red lipstick and a come-hither look for the camera. Loads of other female musicians have done the same. Male musicians (fat or not) never have to do this. The reason for that is sexism. It’s not hard to understand.
“I think feminism falls prey to embeded methods of oppression, of dominance and submission—one expression of which is the claiming of the high moral ground”
Ouch, well that puts those of us who disagree with you in our place. Then again maybe some feminists have better and more consistent arguments than others e.g. I’ve never heard a decent defence of the idea that women are liberated by taking our clothes off and being photographed for men to gawp at. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with morality in particular.
delphyne
You’re barking up the wrong tree. Sorry. I’m not interested in the debate.
Miller - “There was an article about how women and men were both shown images of nudes and men felt an overwhelming sense of reward when looking at the female form while females didn’t when looking at the male form.”
I really do hope you’re mentioning this article to highlight the fact that as Delphyne said, “when men see women being degraded or sexually humiliated or presented for their pleasure and delectation they enjoy it - it makes them feel powerful and manly.”
It seems obvious that men have had and continue to have an endless supply of images of women appearing in poses that reinforce the idea that we were put on this earth to service them. Is it any surprise then that a man would look at these images and believe the message that he is being transmitted?
The difference with women is that we are not bombarded with these constant images telling us that men are our sex slaves, so again, it seems like no surprise that women would react to images of naked men not feeling as if they were put on this earth to service us, but that they are fully formed human beings that just decided to take their clothes off.
I’m sorry I was short there Dawn. It’s just in the real world I’m surrounded by people who don’t notice the different ways men and women are treated and by denial about the way that plays out and I find it very frustrating.
So if I can promise not to be short, would it be possible for you to explain why you don’t think the very obvious fact that women are sexualised in this culture and expected to present ourselves for the male gaze whilst the opposite doesn’t happen to men, isn’t important, when we’re talking about various women taking their clothes off in order to supposedly make a point.
Kiki>
I’m basing what I understand about Beth Ditto being happy and confident on what she has said in interviews. I know she has a public persona, and who knows, she could be miserable in private - but that’s beside the point: she’s still presenting herself as having a right to be happy and sing in a band and wear silly outfits or whatever. Unlike nearly all other representations of (younger) fat women in the public domain.
I know there’s a few other visible fat-positive well-known women, such as Camryn Manheim, Dawn French, Magda Szubanski, Queen Latifah, but they don’t have quite the same impact with teenage girls.
I don’t even know if it’s true as a general rule. I think the whole ‘Men Are Hornier Than Women’ thing is a myth designed to ensure that women continue to be assessed in terms of their fuckability. Because Female Sexuality=Looked At, while Male Sexuality =Looking, and sexism’s done a pretty good job of convincing people of this.
Women probably aren’t as aroused by the photographs because, as a society, we aren’t used to looking at men’s bodies in a sexual way. Men’s bodies are presented as being strong and functional. But Women=Sex. I think Twisty even did a post on a ‘scientific’ experiment similar to the one you linked which claimed that straight women were just as aroused by images of naked women as men were. While most commenters joked that the sample group were just people who got turned on by the prospect of having wires strapped to them, it wouldn’t surprise me if the women were as aroused by the images as the men. If most images in popular culture were designed to encourage male homoeroticism; if all the sex workers and all the nude models and all the people-spread-out-passively-on-a-furry-substance were men—if Men=Second Sex—then you’d probably see those straight female ‘reward centres’ light up like Christmas trees. (and those same centres might start buzzing when straight men looked at other men!)
Granted, men have more testosterone than women. But testosterone isn’t the only or even most important factor that affects libido. Tiredness, stress, ego—all these things play a part, too. And of course, social restraints like being labelled a slut or taboos around same-sex experimentation (for straight men especially) are pretty powerful as well.
Finally, have a squiz at this:
Want Naked Men, Dammit
That was @ miller.
spitfire: or female sexuality=bodice-ripping romance novels and emotional stimulation.
Spitfire, I hear you on the men-as-objects-of-desire thing. It’s a little better in England than in America, but it’s idealistic to think such a perspective would ever become universally accepted without a complete makeover of the patriarchy setup.
Someone pointed something out a few posts back that I had never thought of before, but which should have been obvious: Dominatrix(ii? Es?) are simply another stereotype of male masturbatory material and are thus actually not practicing any dominant behavior at all. A true dominatrix can only be a radical feminist lesbian in sweats. Half joking, but certainly it makes more sense than a straight woman pinched and crammed into a sexAy outfit and stilletos ‘dominating’ a man until he comes, nyet?
The same thing applies to women-as-sexual-predator. Even when we choose them and the situation is arranged just-so to our specifications, typically we’re still the ones being penetrated. That act in itself is submission of a very personal nature.
delphyne:
I don’t think it’s not important. I’ve said very little about what I think, really. Mostly, I think people are autonomous, and can make decisions about how they use their bodies (though I have been known to intervene in suicide attempts, so there’s a limit to my tolerance for autonomy). In the case of the protesters, I believe they feel the press coverage they get as a result of disrobing is worth it if it benefits their cause. Who am I to say they’re wrong?
We live in a complex world, and most of us are just bumbling through it, trying to figure out what to do between the time when we get out of bed in the morning and the time when we fall back into it at night. I hear you on the frustration of being surrounded by those who don’t get the implications or the consequences of consistently sexualizing women, but people still have a right to find their own way, to figure it out on their own, to get part of it, to choose to use part of it for their own ends, etc.
I see the various approaches to feminism as a sort of venn diagram of circles defining a problem space. There may be as many circles as there are feminists, but there’s going to be an area where some or all or most of us overlap. The injustice of what happened to Kathy Sierra, the De Anza case, Alison Stokke, etc. About these things we can probably agree. I find the possibility of going to work on that overlapping space much more interesting that trying to argue or even, to explain or to define what part of our circles don’t overlap.
I can make the whole argument against porn. And then I can make it about dressing provocatively, about colouring my hair, about wearing makeup, etc. In fact, I’m one of those women still deemed fuckable even fat, even without makeup, even in sweats. I can make an argument for completely covering myself up, so that I’m not running the chance of being sexualized. And what about those who post pictures of their children on line? I can think of one child in particular who has such a compelling sweetness that I’m fairly certian she’s being sexualized by someone. I just don’t see an end to that argument, so I have to conclude that porn isn’t the real problem. It’s a symptom. Just like alcoholism is a symptom of psychological or nuerological issues. Am I making any sense?
It’s not that I don’t think it’s important, I don’t think it’s THAT important, and I think you want me in the part of the circle where we agree, because I’m smart and resourceful and interested in doing something to change the stuff the REALLY gets under my skin. I might even be willing to take off my clothes, if that will help.
Also: I realize it’s a bit disingenuous to enter a debate saying, “I don’t want to debate,” and I realize that the dialogue is important. It’s just that I’m not especially interested in it. It’s not what I want.
What I want: I want a database, a network, a lobby group that can put pressure on people like that fucking moron who decided not to prosecute the de Anza case. I want to be able to slap a cease and decist order on the fuckers who made space for the harassment of Kathy Seirra, and I want to be able to pay someone to put a case together so that they can be sued within an inch of their nest eggs. I want the case highly publicized. I want it to scare the shit out of those fuckers, and all the other fuckers like them. I want the fucker who pimped Allison Stokke’s image to be innundated with a focused and persistent campaign of dissuasion. I want them scared. I want men who do not perpetuate misogyny to stop tolerating it. To stop playing yukking it up at women’s expense, the way they’ve stopped yukking it up at the expense of other victims of oppression and discrimination. Mostly, though, I just want them scared.
Thanks, Frumious B
You’re welcome, but Frigga’s Own deserves the credit.
I know there’s a few other visible fat-positive well-known women, such … Dawn French…
I love French and Sunders. Did you ever see their Star Wars Spoof? Dawns French’s Queen Amidala is too much.
*Saunders*
Oh baby, I wish I had read this before I commented at Dr. B’s place. This is precisely the problem. And the underclass is fighting to get in with the cool kids instead of smashing the system which made them an underclass in the first place. This is where my head explodes.
In response to Dawn Coyote–”people are autonomous, and can make decisions about how they use their bodies”- I think your argument is narrow and it doesn’t see the picture at large.
Like Gail Dine said at the anti-pornography conference in March, the problem is: these women who are choosing to exploit themselves in our visually consumed media based culture create problems for the rest of us women walking to our cars at night alone.
The beauty standard will constantly change- so whether she is fit, fat or purple isn’t the issue.
Exploiting her body to once again associate the female with adjectives and her body gives her the position of the sex- which is what we are trying to escape from. -Sure she can be sexually “liberated”-(”freedom of speech”)-can take the higher position, but I wonder if those who preach that will feel the same way when their male co-worker making $.20 more by the hour with the EXACT same qualifications as the female, are being paid less. Or when a “male” wants to brutally visually/physically exploit and /or objectify a female (especially a young daughter or niece) because our highly sexualized culture is incessantly getting off on the woman’s body–(she) turning it into an object- making her worth the same as a tampon, that gets used, bloodied and then thrown away.
Honestly how are we expected to expect respect with this kind of behavior going on?
I’m not saying one shouldn’t have an amount of freedom with their body, but how far do you really want to take this?
Get naked because it is your body and your choice, but understand you are not just exploiting yourself you are helping to exploit the idea of the woman.
The writing style of ‘Want Naked Men, Dammit’ reminds me of LMYC for some reason.
Spitfire: A-fucking-men. Thank you. I am so tired of that crap. I’m not the man in the relationship, he’s not the woman — we’re both humans, let that be the end of it. I blame the gender binary. Uuurgh.
Niki, you’re absolutely right about the dominatrix thing. If you’ve read Sacher-Masoch’s “Venus in Furs,” you know all about it. Severin wants Wanda to dominate him but *spoiler alert* in the end, when Wanda finally decides to assume the role as Severin’s dominatrix, she does exactly what he doesn’t want her to do–actually dominate him by doing things against his will. She truly is “sadistic” at that moment. Instead of her beating Severin after tying him up, she has her other male lover do it while she walks away. Severin afterwards breaks his submission contract with her and moves far away. It’s not truly domination until the man has no control, and no man, or really anyone, ever wants to give up his control. A post-patriarchal society would not even have the word “control” in it, just as “beauty” would be a quaint and naive notion.
Anyone feel like a little misogynist for breakfast?
It occurs to me that porn and prostitution exist, in part, so that men never have to experience the state of being deemed fuckable or unfuckable. When the world provides you the means to buy sex, you get to perceive yourself as above such classification and always in the powerful position. You’re always fuckable. Or you’re unfuckable, but who cares? It’s the worthless bitches who have to prove their fuckability in order to secure their livelihood. But you’re the customer! And the customer is always right!
IBTP.